EXTENSIVE TRAVELS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17957, 8 December 1932, Page 2

EXTENSIVE TRAVELS

FOREIGN LANDS VISITED .UUU--- G.y NSW ZEALANDER RETURNS . . >'.i Since he left New Zealand some time ago to take up a research fellowship jn economics at Columbia University, New York, Dr. W. B. Sutch lias visited more than twenty countries. In an interview in Wellington, Dr. Sutch said -that after a comprehensive tour of Europe he left Englana lor Bergen, in Western Norway. From there lie shipped on a small coastal vessel which visited dozens of small islands and fiords along a thousand miles of rugged coastline. From Hammerpcst, which claims to be the northernmost town in the world, the ship sailed round the North Cape into the Arctic Ocean, where the Northern Lights are visible. Dr. Sutch stepped ashore at Kirkenes, ‘a small fishing and mining village, and proceeded with pack on back to walk across Lapland. He finally arrived in, Helsingfors, Finland, from which city he crossed the Russian border to Leuingrad. After some days in Moscow the journev was resumed to Samara on the Volga, then through Western Siberia to the native city of Tashkent, the capital of Russian Turkestan. The next place visited by Dr. Sutch was Samarkand in Usbekistan, probably the most inaccessible truly Oriental town in the world. Dr. Sutch was the first foreigner to enter Samarkand without a Government escort since the Russian revolution.

■ Next came Kagan and Bokhara, now only a crumbling min of its former glory, but still famous for its carpets, velvets and embroideries, which to this day are carried by camel caravan to more westernised centres. The last Russian, town visited was Termez, on the River Oxus, the boundary of Afghanistan. Here Dr Sutch used a Soviet aeroplane to cross the Hindu

Kush range on the 3CO-mile journey to Kabul. The Hindu Kush is second only to the Himalayas in the altitudes of its peaks, which rise to nearly 25,000 ft. At no stage was the plane much below 17,000 ft. .it;,; On the journey from Kabul through the Khyfcer Pass to Peshawar, Dr. Sutch was held up by bandits, but escaped unhurt. Dv. Sutch also visited the main towns of India from Lahore tc Calcutta and back again to Bombay, where he boarded the Strath never still with his rucksack and shorts. From Sydney he crossed to New Zealand by the Maungnnui. Dr. Sutch said lie intended staying in Now Zealand for some time.